Cherries vary: the different types …

Cherries come in two categories: sweet and tart. Sweet cherries are the most
popular.

Bing – as we’ve discussed,
the Bing is king when it comes to the demand for sweet cherries. It is a
large, plump variety with dark, purple-red flesh and dark ruby skin that
turns nearly black when fully ripe.

Lambert – the second most
popular variety. It’s a red, heart-shaped fruit, very similar in taste to
the Bing.

Rainier – the third most
popular, developed at the Washington State University Research Station by
Dr. Harold Fogle. It is sweeter and milder than the Bing, and has creamy
yellow and pink flesh and skin.

Royal Ann – this variety is
most often made into maraschino cherries. It was in 1896 that cherry
processors in the United States
began experimenting with making Royal Ann cherries into maraschinos,
following the lead of the original maraschino cherries – a variety called
Marasca that Italian merchants soaked in liqueur. The processors
substituted almond oil for some of the liqueur in the cherries, eventually
omitted the liqueur altogether, and by 1920 the Royal Ann version of the
maraschino had replaced the Italian delicacy in the United
States.

Sour cherries – the tart
varieties, Montmorency and Morello being the most common types, are a very
bright red in color and much smaller than the sweets. They’re most often
canned or frozen and used for pie fillings and sauces. Michigan
grows over 75% of the tart cherry crop in a five-county area around Lake
Traverse.

All varieties of cherry have remarkably short growing seasons. Bings are
generally available from the end of May to early August, reaching their peak
season in June and July. Its sweet counterparts such as Van, Lambert, and Rainier
are available a tad bit longer, until about mid-August or so. The cherry
varieties that appear earlier and later in the season than Bings are softer and
less sweet. Any fresh cherries you see in the store after August are most
likely from cold storage, although some stores import small quantities of sweet
cherries from New Zealand
during the winter months. The growing season of sour cherries such as Morello
and Montmorency is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it short – it both begins and
ends in July!